


gravity won't let me go

by Suicix



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Identity Issues, Introspection, Otherkin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 06:47:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4656750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suicix/pseuds/Suicix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A whole universe makes up Cody's soul, is trapped inside his body and waiting to expand. (Or maybe just a star that needs to burst and make itself known.)</p>
<p>Or, how Stardust came to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	gravity won't let me go

**Author's Note:**

> chronicles between around 2012 to 2014 when stardust appeared, with mentions of previous events in less detail. so rhodes scholars, that whole period of time when cody would be on what was then the jbl & cole show on youtube (mostly because i wanted to include wade so suE ME; i don't remember what episode numbers of that show this spanned but these were Good Times i recommend it; it was like late 2013 to early 2014).
> 
> also i'm not pretending to be an expert on spacekin/otherkin in general but i started this as just a character study type thing and then cody went all spacekin on me so i have tagged it because it seemed appropriate to. i started and wrote most of this like two months ago but it's only finished now oops.
> 
> Title from "Gravity" by Young Guns.

It’s easy to think you’re worth more than what you get here. The general consensus in the locker room is that if you don’t think you deserve better, your name must be John Cena.

Cody feels the same way as just about everyone else: that he has so much more to offer than what he’s given, than what he’s expected to do. It’s not just world titles and main eventing for him, though. No, it’s a lot more... existential than that.

He moonsaults not just because he likes the move or to show off that he can do it. A part of it is the name, that it alone makes him feel just a little closer to where he knows he belongs, but also the actual nature of the move itself. Having an aerial move as part of his move-set is one step towards – towards being able to jet out into space. That’s what it feels like, anyway. Like flying, almost, but no, Cody doesn’t want to _fly_. Flying is for the sky, for the blue and for the clouds, for when the view of the ground down below is what you’re there for. He isn’t going to be looking at Earth. Besides, he hates heights.

What Cody really wants to do is to float, zero gravity. That doesn’t involve heights – space is here, space is everywhere, space contains Earth itself... but Cody wishes he wasn’t bound to it. He shouldn’t be. He should be able to circle the skies and the stars.

He’s revolved past God knows how many tag team partners like a planet in orbit, ever spinning and never stopping. He wins the titles with some of them; with some of them he doesn’t. And twice, he ends up with a championship all for himself.

It’s fitting: Earth there in blue and gold on the white leather strap that _he_ paid good money to bring back, thank you very much. He does his best to elevate it, not just for himself but for anyone after him that manages to win it from him and after that.

(He’s not exactly thrilled that that turns out to be Big Show, but when Cody wins the rematch at Extreme Rules, he’s elated, a comet soaring through the cosmos. He loses it again of course, but at least Christian’s someone who’s gone underappreciated in his career.)

For a while after that, Cody drifts, alone. He thinks he could be on the verge of doing something drastic – like last year when he took up wearing the mask – but he finds himself approached by Damien Sandow.

Damien’s a little older than him, but it’s his first year on the roster. He’s all talk of big ambitions and enlightenment. It’s strange that he wants to team up with someone, Cody thinks. Damien seems to spend half his time talking down to anyone he can, not caring whether it’s someone else on the roster or a crew member or just the fans he encounters outside the arenas.

He doesn’t talk down to Cody. Maybe this could be the start of something. They become friends (“ _Best friends_ ,” Damien says, and Cody’s overjoyed), and they become Team Rhodes Scholars.

Sure, the name might be a clever pun, but Cody can’t help but wish that his part in it was something that was more about _him_ rather than just his family, something that’s defined so much of his career so far that he’s sick of it. It defined his part in Legacy, defines him on commentary every time either his dad or brother is mentioned in one of his matches. And yeah, sure, Cody loves them both even with their eccentricities, but he just wishes someone would give him the platform to do things completely on his own terms for once. He’s good enough to not have to use them as a crutch, especially as he’s pretty sure that Vince McMahon never _really_ respected his father.

Even if he did get that chance, though, he doesn’t think the part of himself that he’d want to show is exactly something that would garner much acceptance. He can hear Mr McMahon’s laughter in his head now, can imagine that he’d probably end up being put into some kind of spacesuit to wrestle.

He doesn’t need a spacesuit. He’s not a goddamn astronaut. He is cosmic and celestial and so much a part of outer space that it feels like he wouldn’t even need anything to help him breathe out there.

It hurts to know that that’s not physically possible.

He finds solace in the night sky when things become too much. It’s difficult to find somewhere, but whenever he can Cody is out to an open area where the stars are visible from down below.

Previous tag partners didn’t wonder where he was going – probably didn’t even notice he’d gone – but sometimes Damien will ask and then insists on coming with him because of _course_ Damien fancies himself as an astronomy expert. (Well – Damien fancies himself as a just-about-everything-expert, so really it’s nothing new.)

The first few times Damien comes along, he’s always pointing out constellations and sharing facts about what’s up there. It would be illuminating, if Cody didn’t know most of it already. He gives soft responses of “I know,” when he does, and eventually, Damien stops trying to bombard him with pieces of knowledge.

They sit in comfortable quiet from then on. Sometimes Damien will point something out, give some information, but it’s nowhere near as condescending as before, much more genuine now.

And that’s when Cody thinks: maybe. Maybe Damien will understand. Maybe he can unload his feelings onto Damien without feeling totally vulnerable afterwards.

He waits until they’re in the quiet of the hotel room one evening – the best tag partners always share, of course – before saying anything. Damien’s the only person he wants to hear this, after all.

“Do you ever feel like... like you’re something more than this?” He chooses the words carefully, hoping that maybe Damien will be able to resonate with them and accept what he’s being entrusted with.

“Than what, than the tag team division?” Damien says, and Cody’s about to interject with a _no, that’s not what I meant_ , but the rest of the response comes too quickly for that. “Eventually, I’d like to hope so. Not that we can’t remain friends after we part ways of course, but everybody here wants something more than one of two bronze belts. Especially with Money in the Bank coming up.”

Oh yeah – Money in the Bank. With both of them in the same ladder match, there’s no way for Cody to tell what could happen to the team if one of them wins. That isn’t what he wants to talk about, though.

“Not... not exactly. It’s more like... a personal thing. Not anything to do with my career or wrestling at all. Something I’ve felt for... for a pretty long time. I feel...” He has to pause for a moment, has to collect his thoughts together again so he can explain it in the way he wants to. “I feel like I’m made for something... something beyond this earth. Something – I don’t _know_ , something out there in space. Like I’ve got this connection with it. Like I’m a part of it, like I’m some whole universe of stars and planets and everything just – just _waiting_ to burst out into space when it’s time to.”

That’s the best he can do. Cody looks up again, hoping to find even just a fragment of acceptance there, but the expression on Damien’s face is more than rather telling about what he thinks of what Cody’s just said. It’s a look of disdain, disgust, disbelief, and when Cody looks for a moment longer – _pity_. The kind of pity that Damien doesn’t even bother to disguise, the kind that’s there to show off his supposed superiority, the kind that’s usually directed at Team Hell No or the Prime Time Players or 3MB. Not Cody, never Cody.

“People can’t be... people can’t be _things_ , Cody. People can’t be animals, objects, or... whatever it is that you say you are. A galaxy?”

“A universe,” Cody mumbles, even though that’s _not_ what he said. He _knows_ he’s a human. He just... feels like there’s something more to him than that. Feels like he belongs out there. Like every time they looked up at the stars together he was looking at somewhere he’s meant to end up one day, and he doesn’t mean in a religious way in the slightest.

“The universe is so vast and it’s always expanding. You can’t possibly think _you’re_ the universe, that you have endless time and mass and...” He sniggers a little before continuing, “ _knowledge_ there inside you. It just doesn’t make any logical sense. However you feel... it’s more than just a little irrational, don’t you think?”

He’s got that smirk on his face, the one that comes about because of some clever remark he’s made. Usually, Cody echoes it. Not now, though.

It’s a little terrifying that this is how someone he thought he could trust with anything reacts to what’s been one of the most consuming parts of his life for as long as he can remember. Who was he before this, even? Before the heavens took hold of him and the joints of his body became stars that hold together a constellation? He doesn’t remember.

Damien’s gone soon after that, and he takes the Money in the Bank briefcase with him. Cody tries not to care, tells himself that he’s something bigger than this, something that encompasses planets and stars and galaxies. It makes him feel a little better, but the almost definite prospect of a world title would have been nice, too.

Later, when the briefcase is lost and Cena prevails even with only one arm, caring about Damien is what Cody finds himself _trying_ to do. Not that he’s actually going to approach Damien about it, but internally he tells himself to sympathise – they were _best friends_ , and that could have been him, after all. It was so close to being him.

But it’s _not_ him, thanks to Damien’s betrayal, and instead Cody ends up being the one holding a title – even if it is just the tag belts again rather than the big gold belt.

He still isn’t quite sure how that happened. One moment he was throwing the prized briefcase into the Gulf of Mexico, and then a loss to Randy – his old mentor in Legacy, now WWE Champion once more – was costing him his job. (He doesn’t need long to think of how Randy would have processed the fact that Cody’s never felt quite human: with scorn, more scathing than Damien – a roll of his eyes and a disbelieving laugh.)

Time seems to be going by faster, like he’s on Venus or Mercury rather than Earth. (He wishes that was true, wishes he could break from the atmosphere and see home through something that wasn’t an online transmission of the stars.)

Once more, he finds himself spiralling a little. It’s always strange to be alone after time in a team, to hear his own theme in the arena as he makes his way to the ring again. There’s little happening, though. No drama, now he’s rid of Damien. Just matches.

He – for some reason, he doesn’t know _why_ , probably just as an attempt to cure the mind-numbing boredom he’s worked himself into again – decides to challenge JBL to a duel. A _duel_. He doesn’t know what he was thinking, but it ends up including water balloons and then him becoming somewhat of a fixture on the webshow.

And then, Wade gets involved.

Cody likes Wade; they won a Survivor Series match together a couple of years ago. Cody likes how he doesn’t skirt around things, how he can tell people what he thinks with the same ease that he can land an elbow or a fist in someone’s face.

Wade gets rid of the last remnants of Damien for him, i.e., that awful moustache that Damien was always insistent Cody keep although Cody was never sure about it. He feels a little more himself again now – not some smarmy sidekick always expected to be able to keep up with every excessively syllable-d word that was thrown at him. Not moulded by Damien so all attention’s cast past Cody and onto him.

Even with how blunt Wade can be, though, it’s rare that he is about himself. If he reveals much about himself it’s either to intimidate or to impress, but he opens up for Cody through small smiles and the occasional burst of laughter.

It kind of makes Cody want to open up for him.

He doesn’t think he can, though. After it destroyed his friendship with Damien, Cody doesn’t want Wade to go the same way. Besides, he thinks Wade would probably find it just as preposterous as Damien did, so he keeps his universe locked up inside him where no-one can see.

It drives him a little wild: the hiding, the completely earthbound facade he has to keep up, not to mention the endless orbit of matches against Rybaxel. It’s at some point during this that he slips up again. That he keeps being the reason why he and Goldust find themselves almost constantly losing matches – because Cody can’t find _himself_.

He needs more time so he can just sit and think about it, but that’s not something you can do when you’re supposed to be part of a tag team, strategising with another person to win the match rather than just relying on yourself to do it. There’s so much more to look out for in a team: yourself, your teammate, the fact that you have multiple opponents. Cody’s always dealt with it fine – it’s why he’s been in teams with so many people, why he’s won the tag titles several times – but now it’s tearing him apart. How are you meant to know somebody else so well that you can function seamlessly in a team if you don’t even know yourself?

He watches as Damien attempts to find himself in others, as Wade revels in an identity that Cody created for him. It makes him crave that stability even more – seeing Wade with it and seeing Damien without it. He wants to achieve what a friend has, and at the same time be able to have one up on someone who betrayed him in the past.

He can’t just – he can’t just be _space_ anymore. Can’t just be a whole universe, ever expanding, never stopping. It’s not because of what Damien said back then, of course not, because it’s still Cody, sure, but he wants a clearer idea of himself, not just something general that encompasses everything. Something precise, something particular, something _him_.

He searches. Not just for himself but for people who can replace him for the time being while he looks for that. None of them work, of course – not Sin Cara, not Kofi, not R-Truth – but it’s just to give himself some time to find himself in, to find the _perfect_ tag partner for Goldust, the one he deserves.

Hopefully he’ll be able to find that in himself. It’s in there somewhere, Cody knows it. Somewhere out there in his universe.

He examines himself in great detail, as if he’s looking through a telescope up at the stars, and – that’s a good place to start.

_Stars_.

The more Cody thinks about it, the more sense it makes. Matter from stars _does_ just about make up everything, but he feels like for him it means something more. _Knows_ for him it means something more. He knows it.

In the dark, looking up at them from below, away from the noise of the metropolis and light pollution, he feels more alive than he ever has. Even being in the ring, even being in the ring _and winning_ has nothing on this.

Yes. Definitely. _Stars_.

He’ll have to write Wade a carefully written note; this can’t be explained in person because in all likelihood Cody will just lose control of himself and it will all come rushing out and he does not does not does _not_ want Wade to ever look at him the same way that Damien did all those months ago.

The note is fun, jokey, and they use it on the show. Wade seems genuinely upset by it, though: not just acting for the show but deep, deep down.

Cody has to avoid him. Has to avoid anything that could even try to convince him that becoming... becoming _one with the stars_ is an absolute no-go, and unfortunately, that includes Wade. Cody will miss him, but he has to do this. Maybe they’ll meet again, somewhere up high in the cosmos. Cody hopes so.

When he goes to look at the stars nowadays, it’s even more fascinating and dazzling than before, and now, now that he _knows_ that it’s him, that that’s what he is, he can’t just keep it under wraps like he’s been doing. He has to shine and burn and twinkle, has to let his soul show.

So he starts with the paint. It seems like the easiest way to separate this Cody completely from the one everybody already knows, the one everybody _thinks_ they know, and everyone will just think he’s trying to be a good brother and a good tag partner and trying to make the team more cohesive. Black and gold because it’s tradition, he guesses, though maybe sometime in the future he’ll go for silver or red or blue instead. For something different, to be more the colour of the stars in the sky than gold.

He finishes it off with a star of course, and names this version of himself _Stardust_ in homage to his father and his brother, but most of all, to himself. Part of the change may be because now, he can actually be the tag partner his brother deserves, and that’s what seems to be being presented as the reason why by commentary, but mostly it’s because of the much bigger reason for it, the reason for Cody alone to know.

It’s not like anybody’s going to understand the real significance behind it all, but it’s certainly a way to make a statement, however people may interpret it.


End file.
